Air Force One climbed into the sky bringing a quiet end to a tumultuous episode in America’s geo-political and social/cultural legacy. As the 46 th president-elect and exemplary, history-making   vice president-elect stand ready to take the oath of office, there is an emerging hope and expectation that the worse days of the ongoing American experiment in democracy is over.   Think again. As avowed white supremacists, Nazi oriented and maniac insurrectionists caused a lockdown of Washington, DC, their presence like Covid 19 will continue to permeate American thought. Far too many Americans continue to hold allegiance to a 45 th president who had a callous disregard for them, as well as those ideals creative people hold dear…articulating individual and collective truth and the expansion of a creative intellect. Unfortunately, these millions of Americans do not hold dear racial and social equity under the law or that there should be an acceptance of an America based ...

South Porch, Seward House Museum (photo by: Lisa Brennan) aaduna, Inc. in association with the Harriet Tubman Boosters presented a reading of words on the South Porch of the Seward House Museum.  Three reading rounds enabled the audience to experience intriguing and enchanting words that were heard throughout the Gardens of the Museum.  This event celebrated the Museum's September First Friday Community Event, as well as the non-profit corporation's fifth year of publishing aaduna , an online literary and visual arts journal.   Bobbie Dumas Panek (photo:  Lisa Brennan) Ron Van Nostrand (Photo by: Jessie Reich) The affair, funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, featured the esteemed Auburn poet, Bobbie Dumas Panek... Special guest, Ron Van...

I saw him and his family at the now defunct Electric Circus, an entertainment Mecca that graced the middle of the block (which had become the east coast epicenter of youth culture as I knew it… even tried to get a job at the “Circus,” maybe it was 1963…didn’t happen…I was not weird enough…so I knew the venue well especially the downstairs space that was devoted to soul music and R&B on Sunday evenings for dancing and other frivolities…. The Circus balanced St. Marks Place, East Village, NYC where the counter-culture lifestyle of hippies and   so called “flower children” reigned supreme and the air always had a distinct aroma and hazy aura. So, when Auburn’s adopted daughter and sister friend, Cyd Charisse Fulton took to the mic at aaduna’s May 28 th Theater Mack fundraiser and started to talk about Sly and the Family Stone and her poem that centered on his music, I knew she was ready to rock it.   Oh…if you don’t know, Sly was a west coast DJ named Sylvester Stew...

Catherine C. Poku, May 28, 2015 (photo by Lisa Brennan) "Catherine wowed the crowd with her poetry and creative non-fiction.  Her delivery was full of emotion, swagger, and intellectual curiosity as she enabled the audience to gravitate towards her and become captives influenced by her words, thoughts and subtle physical movements that portrayed the characteristics that her words were conveying." Re-live or experience that moment for the first time.  Watch her video.... right here, right now!   https://youtu.be/sppG4p_WSWY Mz. Poku's fiction work is featured in aaduna's 5th anniversary/spring 2015 issue.   Click here  Help us build community!  Share with your friends,  "like" our Aaduna-Inc facebook page and follow us on twitter @ aadunaspeaks !  aaduna-Inc  Visit regularly for updates ! @aadunaspeaks

You know the feeling...being riveted by the thump of the bass and that "blue note" that gets your feet to involuntary tap, tap the floor...and then your fingers and thumb start to drum the table....your body eventually gives up and succumbs... you enjoy the movement and do not want the feeling to stop. Raymond Nat Turner, Photo by Lisa Brennan 5/28/2015 Welcome to the world of this jazz poet...his world.  Raymond Nat Turner! Enjoy video clip #4, "Medicine Man," performed by aaduna featured guest poet and spoken word artist, Raymond Nat Turner at aaduna's annual spring fundraiser, "In the Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance...Revisited 2015"  held at Theater Mack,     Auburn, NY on May 28, 2015.   The event was supported by Poets & Writers and the New York State Council on the Arts.  https://youtu.be/luaob58zq8s * * * * * Raymond Nat Turner, NYC poet, is the artistic director...

Gonzalinho da Costa’s poems will embrace the pages of aaduna’s forthcoming spring 2015 issue with a launch date towards the end of National Poetry Month, which is this month...April! With permission of the poet, we celebrate POETRY with a da Costa poem followed by his brief narrative that will enhance your understanding of an aspect of Filipino culture and tradition. THE RICE PLANT I held him by his slender neck To pierce him under his chin And saw white sap trickle forth Like milk spills from a tin. I shook him strongly by his thigh To feel him flail like a fish And heard his hands’ helpless sigh Like sand shaken in a dish. I bravely bent his youthful bone, Which sprang with a painful cry— I wondered how one so green and wet Should so resemble I— For I am brown and dry. Gonzalinho da Costa shares: Rice is a symbol of Southeast Asia—kindly note, for example, the bound rice sheaf in the ASEAN logo. Malays, who incl...

That’s right! Austin C. Morgan (c) 2015 (Photo Provided) While you may have thought  the festival ended, Austin Morgan returns with another intriguing story, “The Embers of Dusk” the second installment of a four part series that may rest with the overall title, "The Automatic Orchestra" when it is in book form.  For now, we simply refer to these stories as the "Melancholy Quartet."    Austin's first story with aaduna,  “Julie Templeton and the AutomaticOrchestra,” was published in aaduna's summer 2014 issue, and it tantalized our readers.   His second piece is an ambitious piece of story- telling that once again shows Mr. Morgan's mastery of words, narrative imagery, and movement through space and time.      So, let the festival continue.   Austin returns in aaduna's upcoming 5th anniversary-spring 2015 issue scheduled for publishing this month! Here’s an unedited t...